1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic module having at least a microprocessor and co-processor on a single integrated circuit. The electronic module can be contained in a small housing. The electronic module provides secure bidirectional data communication via a data bus. More specifically, the present invention relates to an electronic module which includes an integrated circuit comprising a microprocessor, and a co-processor adapted to handle 1,024-bit modulo mathematics primarily aimed at RSA calculations. The electronic module is preferably contained in a small token sized metallic container. The present invention will preferably communicate via a single wire data bus which uses a one-wire protocol.
2. Description of Related Art
Encryption of data has been around for hundreds of years. Encryption may even date back as far as several hundred B.C. More recently, the American Indians used smoke signals. In all forms, the concept of encryption takes a given set of information that is readily understandable by an average person and converts that information into a form that is not understandable except to those people that have the capability to reconfigure the converted information back into an understandable state. Encryption has been used readily during war time. In the second world war, the Nazi""s had a machine called Enigma. Information was placed into the Enigma machine and encrypted information came out. No one could understand the encrypted information unless they had another Enigma type machine to convert the encrypted information back to an understandable format.
Today there are secure xe2x80x9cboxesxe2x80x9d that are manufactured and sold to the government for data communication across telephone lines. Drawbacks of the secure boxes is that they are large and not secure in the particular environment that they are used in. In other words, the boxes may be capable of creating, sending, and receiving data that is secure, but the box itself may not be secure.
The personal computer industry offers software and personal computers that create, send, and receive secure data. The software operates in conjunction with a generic computer. Again, the data that is sent or received is secure, but the computers are not secure.
There is hardware designed specifically to create, send, and receive secure data. The hardware is relatively secure, but is generally large in size, heavy and expensive. Even laptop size computers are considered to be large. Thus, the main drawbacks of present day systems that create, send and receive secure data is their large size, and the limited amount of security provided.
The present invention is an electronic module that comprises a one wire (single wire) interface for bidirectionally interfacing the electronic module with another electronic device. The one wire interface is connected to a one wire UART. The UART is connected to a microprocessor and a co-processor and a memory circuit.
The electronic module is rather small and can be a single chip integrated circuit that has dimensions of less than 400 mils by 220 mils. Although the module may need a small amount of energy to maintain the memory, the majority of the energy required by the electronic module is obtained parasitically from the one wire bus.
The electronic module""s coprocessor can handle encryption mathematics such as modulo math for RSA encryption.
The electronic module is small enough to be installed in a container or other object having dimensions similar to that of 3 or 4 dimes stacked on top of each other or smaller.
The electronic module provides a secure environment to store information and will erase such information if the module is tampered within an unauthorized way. The electronic module also provides a means for securely sending, receiving and transferring information used for signatures, money transaction, access devices, medical information, personal or secret information, postage metering, inventory, etc.